Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

bigking321 · Jul 27, 2022

I am kinda bummed we didn't slow walk tendrils to get the immediate income boost in Q1. I get people's reasoning though.

But, man, with the tendrils and claws done, the first few turns of just crazy levels of mining is going to be really impressive.

Phht · Jul 27, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
RZ-3 (Middle East, loosely) is Beirut and Istanbul, both reasonably close to our existing operations though it'd really help if we had a path through the Sinai. I think some of our existing Red Zone operations are up at the tip of the Red Sea.

We have Red Zone operations on both sides of the Sinai. The eastern side one goes up into Israel/Jordan area and got nuked a bit during fighting with Nod forces after encircling a bunch of them (2055ish). The western one started out in the general Suez area, IIRC. Don't remember where it headed after that, but that one came before the eastern Sinai operations. I don't think they've YZed anything in the area because the glacier is young and tib spikes keep bursting out of the ground randomly, so they can't really contain it. I wonder if MARVS, tendril harvesters, and vein mining could work well together at containing young glaciers.

I feel like if we aim for RZ-3, we probably want that Tripoli hub first as a "way point" across the Med.

--

Side note, anyone think that the tib spike in New York could've been avoided if we had installed an inhibitor in that BZ?

Also, I wonder if a BZ MARV hub would be a good spot to base those rapid response tendril harvester squadrons from. But we got lots of more important things to do than BZ hubs atm.

ramdomperson · Jul 27, 2022

Oleg-14191 said:
Shouldn't it be 1?
Needed 8 at start of Quarter

Simon_Jester said:
requirement where we had +8 Stored Food to go

Strunkriidiisk said:
We had a requirement of 8 stored food, we got 7 this turn, so 1 still outstanding

Ithillid said:
Plan Goals
Food: 8 points in reserve

*Facepalms*

I plead heat-induced brain rot causing me to somehow misread the stored food plan goal as 30 instead of 28. Math results post edited.

Dmol8 · Jul 27, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
Seven Tiberium dice. Seven Free dice allocated to Tiberium category. Two consecutive turns. That's 28 Tiberium dice, rolled at a +39 bonus, for a mean Progress result of 89.5.

28 times 89.5 is 2506 Progress. Easily enough for ten stages of vein mines, or for that matter twelve stages.

Optimistically, if we predict that Harvesting Claws gives us +5 RpT per vein mine, and noting that Tendrils has increased the maximum value by +5... Well, the mean RpT output of a vein mine now is 27.5 RpT, and if I'm right then in 2062Q1 it'll be 32.5 RpT.

Which means ten stages is, of course, 325 RpT of income, and twelve is 390 RpT... on average. It'll be close to that, but not exact. And hopefully by 2062Q3, we'll be able to do Red Zone operations again for another surge from glacier mining.

The trick, of course, is that we need 280 RpT for two turns to fund the vein mines alone, and we really want at least a few hundred RpT of other income because we've got so goddamn much to do. Which is part of why I'm so opposed to just doing every single 'bureau' action we can find. Right now those actions aren't hurting us, because our budget is so big that we can easily pay 20 RpT or whatever every turn. But each of those income bleeds is going to mean dice left fallow in a turn or two.

Edit: Simon I did my own math on this. So put up a correction if you think it is wrong:

Ithillid said:
[ ] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2) (Updated)

Ithillid said:
(Progress 5/195: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [20-35]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods)

For starters Tiberium Vein Mines are an evolution of the prospecting action so I'm not sure they have 12 Stages to do, but besides that using your own math:

(Stage 2) 2506+5 = 2511/195 (Stage 3) 2316/190 (Stage 4) 2126/185 (Stage 5) 1939/180 (Stage 6) 1759/175 (Stage 7) 1584/170 (Stage 8) 1414/165 (Stage 9) 1249/160 (Stage 10) 1089/155 (Stage 11) 934/150 (Stage 12) 784/145 (Stage 13) 639/140 (Stage 14) 499/135 (Stage 15) 364/130 (Stage 16) 234/125 (Stage 17) 109/120 +15 Canon Omake to complete. (Stage 18) 0-4/115

That is -17 Capital Goods. And no I'm not making this up each Stage's completion requirement shrinks by 5:

Ithillid said:
[ ] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 1)
With major development of the prospecting expeditions having discovered vast amounts of Tiberium under the surface, fairly conventional underground mines have become a significant proposal. While they will require additional robotic support, especially because it is politically nonviable to have large scale human losses, these will be expensive, but also a major source of income without having to expose GDI assets to the Brotherhood of NOD.
(Progress 205/200: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [20-30]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods)

This is far from the first attempt at underground mining of Tiberium. That particular dubious honor goes to the North Koreans, who attempted to do a covert spread of Tiberium in a number of played out mines and conduct harvesting operations with political prisoners before the GDI takeover in 2005. The results were, to say the least, poor. Casualties were high, with significant losses due to multiple cave ins. Similar results occurred in the coal countries of West Virginia and North Carolina, where attempts at converting coal into Tiberium faced both local resistance to conversion, and significant losses due to Tiberium compromising the supports to the mine. Ever since that point, surface harvesting has been the default, with little attention paid to the underground.
The first wave of Tiberium Vein mines have been completed. Each is fundamentally simple. A cliff face or mountainside is the recipient of a pair of tunnels. The tunnel turns into a wide gentle spiral, digging down towards a Tiberium vein. At some point short of the vein, the two tunnels, reinforced along their length and paved through, join, and the mine face is formed. A series of blasting charges along the mine face open the vein. At that point, no more human examination is done, and all further operations are conducted by machines. The vein is attacked by a trio of machines. A blaster, a harvester, and a set of carriers. The blaster is little more than a fairly low powered sonic projector, designed to shatter the Tiberium, and just the Tiberium out of the rockface. Then it is swept up by the Harvester, and loaded into a collector. This is then hauled up one of the two tunnels and to the waiting refinery, while another collector takes its place.
However, there are also typically a series of smaller veins projecting off at various angles, and this is where the vast majority of the drones do their work. Smaller units with a paired drill and small scale sonic projector attack these as the main vein twists and curves away, termites gnawing at roots, digging out the green rock that is eating the planet.

Ithillid said:
[ ] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2) (Updated)
With the concept proven, vein mines are a fairly expensive, but functional way of attacking underground Tiberium, and providing for a long term abatement strategy, while also not stressing military deployments. While they do have their problems, these are of limited import compared to their advantages.
(Progress 20/195: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [20-30]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods)

We rolled 95 and 60 on that turn. This is a mining action and as such it builds up infrastructure with each completed Stage, with @Derpmind even putting Stage 2+3 as 385 instead of 390 in her array. Which then begs the question at what point do you think we get those boreholes? Stage 5? Or Stage 10? Or maybe 15 or 20? Because we are not going to be able to go for the full Edit 2: 40 theoretically possible Stages of Vein Mining. It would be utterly silly by the end.

I'm willing to bet boreholes also build up infrastructure faster than Vein Mines since we have examples in Lunar Mining of how such infrastructure buildup works. So your planed action is inefficient because it doesn't account for better actions unlocking if we do enough Vein Mines.

I also did the math for the Red Zone Border Offensives Actions:

Ithillid said:
[ ] Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Stage 12) (Updated)

Ithillid said:
(Progress 29/150: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle [10-25 Resources]) (1 point of Red Zone Mitigation) (+1 Energy)

Ithillid said:
[-] Tiberium Glacier Mining (Stage 13) (Updated)

Ithillid said:
(Progress 38/205: 30 resources per die) (-5 Logistics, +1 Energy) (additional income trickle [45-65 Resources]) (1 point of Red Zone Mitigation) (0 Stages available)

Ithillid said:
[ ] Red Zone Border Offensives (Stage 1) (Updated)

Ithillid said:
(Progress 0/250: 25 resources per die) (Additional income trickle [15-35 resources]) (3 points of Red Zone Mitigation) (+2 Energy)

Tiberium Super Glacier Mining 0/305-360 30 Resources per Die -1-3 Logistics +2 Energy 50-75 Resources 3 point of Red Zone Mitigation is my guess as to how this action would look like.

So using your math again and splitting the 2506 of progress down the middle even though in actual plans we would focus more on glaciers:

Red Zone Offensives (Stage 1) 1253/250 (Stage 2) 1003/250 (Stage 3) 753/250 (Stage 4) 503/250 (Stage 5) 253/250 (Stage 6) 3/250

Tiberium Super Glacier Mining (Stage 1) 1253/360 (Stage 2) 893/360 (Stage 3) 533/360 (Stage 4) 173/360

Spending the full amount of Dice as you've outlined on Tiberium Vein Mines gets us by your own math 17*27.5 = 367.5 and if we are lucky 17*32.5 = 552.5.

If we spend your intended value of 12 Stages then it is 12*27.5 = 330 and if lucky 12*32.5 = 390.

Using your own math logic here each stage of Red Zone Offensives would have a median gain of 25 RpT and each stage of Tiberium SUper Glacier Mining would be around 62.5 RpT in median.

So if the difference is split then it's 25*5+62.5*3 = 312.5 RpT.

If we do as we have done so far when planning for Glaciers and focus those actions down each time we can then it is 25*4+62.5*4 = 350 RpT.

If we get lucky then Tiberium Vein Mines are worth doing until we get boreholes. If we don't get lucky then Tiberium Vein Mines are not worth doing until we get our income back into action by the logic of your own argument.

Except there is one more piece of math:

Dmol8 said:
Resources:‌ ‌1200-30+5-20 = 1155 + 0+1200-60-110-120-50-160-160-125-285 = 130 in‌ ‌reserve‌ ‌(-15‌ ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌the‌ ‌Forgotten)‌ ‌(-35-20 = -55 ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌grants)‌(+25? from Taxes) (-5 from Resettlement) (-30 from Reconstruction commissions) (-15 from Bureau of Arcologies) (-15 from Consumer Industrial Development) + (-30 from Distributed Heavy Industrial Authority)(-60 in Q4 of 2062, -60 in Q4 of 2063, -60 in Q4 of 2064, -60 in Q4 of 2065)

Dmol8 said:
Tiberium‌ ‌Processing‌ ‌Capacity‌ ‌(2115/2470+600 = 3070)‌ ‌
Taxation Per Turn: +30?
Space Mining Per Turn: +95+5 = +100

2115/3 = 705
30/3 = 10
705+10+100-15-55-5-30-15-15-30 = 650

This is how much RpT we would get at the start of the next plan right now.

650-10-20-15 = 605

This is how much RpT we would have at the start of the next plan if we took all the Actions that cost dice that we haven't taken yet and without any new ones showing up or that -20 RpT we traded for Political Support being removed during reallocation like last time.

We have 130 in reserve right now and are likely to get 100+ more in Q4.
So 605+230 = 835

So we will have 835 to 880 on Q1 2062. We need to rebuild to having 950-1050 RpT to be able to go and plan as usual.
605+350 = 955

We don't need to spend every Die we can in Tiberium for the first two quarters on Vein Mines to get back to where we are now. It takes 6 Dice and 120 Resources to get two Stages of Tiberium Mines done right now and it will get cheaper as we build more and get boreholes as well. It takes 7 Dice and 175 Resources to build 2 Stages of Red Zone Offensives and get the Super Glaciers in Q2 for 7 Dice and 210 Resources.

Edit 3: I forgot to copy the math:
2*27.5+2*25 = 55+50 = 105
2*27.5+2*62.5 = 55+125 = 180
4*27.5+2*25+2*62.5 = 110+50+125 = 285

We can do both and still have a Die left over to do something else in the Tiberium Department. Like say Green Zone Harvesting or a Security Review.

Edit: I love it when I mix up my grammar from two different languages. Edit 4: /s

Edit 2: 40 not 4o

Simon_Jester · Jul 27, 2022

Lightwhispers said:
True that it won't make a critical difference in STU availability, but it may be worth doing if it gates research for further advancements. (No idea if it does so or not, but it might - and long-term, STU availability is one of our critical limiting factors.)

In all candor, do you want me to shuffle projects around, and if so, how? I'm listening; I respect you and you generally don't have utterly baseless or silly suggestions.

Phht said:
We have Red Zone operations on both sides of the Sinai. The eastern side one goes up into Israel/Jordan area and got nuked a bit during fighting with Nod forces after encircling a bunch of them (2055ish).

Hm. A fair point.

I feel like if we aim for RZ-3, we probably want that Tripoli hub first as a "way point" across the Med.

...As in, as a waypoint for travel through the Strait of Gibraltar and out into the eastern Med? Arguably, though most of the tiberium is actually being shipped south to Medina-Jeddah, I think. The trick is that MARV hub overflow isn't always symmetrical. Either of the two RZ-3 hubs will overflow first into the other RZ-3 hub, then into Tripoli... But the Tripoli RZ-1S hub overflows into the YZ-13N Algiers hub, as discussed.

I'm reluctant to build Yellow Zone MARV hubs because right now that might feel like more land grabs to the Nod warlords living in those areas, and we already know said Nod warlords juuuust might go nuclear in that case. So I'd rather start over at the RZ-3 hub sites and work my way east, giving a clear signal that our intentions are against Tiberium, not against Nod.

However, at least at first, we should probably concentrate on the five Red Zone Border Offensive stages currently available and, presumably, the corresponding Super Glacier Mines. Those are a very powerful return on investment in terms of resources and Red Zone abatement in their own right, though it's actually a close run thing between the Mediterranean Red Zone MARVs (and their inhibitors) and the border offensives.

Let's see... three MARV hubs is 1005 Progress, plus two 120-Progress inhibitors, is +13 RZ abatement and +75 RpT for 1245 Progress and +3 Energy.

Five RZBOs is 1250 Progress for +15 RZ abatement and 125 RpT and +10 Energy.

Yeah. RZBOs it is. Worry about MARVs after we're done with those and the super glacier mines.

Side note, anyone think that the tib spike in New York could've been avoided if we had installed an inhibitor in that BZ?

Also, I wonder if a BZ MARV hub would be a good spot to base those rapid response tendril harvester squadrons from. But we got lots of more important things to do than BZ hubs atm.

MARVs are the opposite of quick response, and we have plenty of conventional harvester bases.

I'd love to have a full network of Blue Zone inhibitors, and we could do the project with like a year of focused effort... just as soon as someone shows me how to snap my fingers and conjure up +48 Energy out of thin air. For now, the vein mines will have to do in an attempt to keep underground tiberium under control.

Dmol8 said:
Edit: Simon I did my own math on this. So put up a correction if you think it is wrong:

For starters Tiberium Vein Mines are an evolution of the prospecting action so I'm not sure they have 12 Stages to do, but besides that using your own math:

I'm pretty sure you're mistaken about vein mine stage costs decreasing over time.

I could be wrong, but I think the stage cost dropped to 195 points because of something unrelated; I forget exactly what.

Don't get me wrong, it'd be very convenient if each stage of vein mining was five points cheaper than the last, mind you, like how moon mines work... In any case, if you're right, it makes doing a shitload of vein mining easier, not harder.

I'm willing to bet boreholes also build up infrastructure faster than Vein Mines since we have examples in Lunar Mining of how such infrastructure buildup works. So your planed action is inefficient because it doesn't account for better actions unlocking if we do enough Vein Mines.

That's because I don't make up purely speculative assumptions about how future actions will unfold based on very small or nonexistent datasets.

My assumptions and models are based on the idea that vein mining gets neither easier nor harder with more stages, as is the case with literally every other tiberium mining project we've ever had, save only for those that are made more complicated by active Nod interference.

Tiberium Super Glacier Mining 0/305-360 30 Resources per Die -1-3 Logistics +2 Energy 50-75 Resources 3 point of Red Zone Mitigation is my guess as to how this action would look like.

See previous. I'm not going to make guesses about how good the action is before I see it available. Such guesses are not very useful for planning purposes.

It's irrelevant until ZOCOM says they're ready to let us advance into the Red Zones again, anyway. The reason we're planning vein mines is in large part because we cannot do Red Zone mining, because ZOCOM does not have enough soldiers to secure significantly more Red Zone operations on the scale of the border offensives.

Hopefully, finishing one Zone Armor plant this turn and another (or two more) next turn will allow Ground Force to train up security units to cover those areas by 2062Q1 or 'Q2, or at the latest 'Q3. I hope. I won't build complicated castles in the air about speculative stat lines of actions that aren't on the list until then.

2115/3 = 705
30/3 = 10
705+10+100-15-55-5-30-15-15-30 = 650

This is how much RpT we would get at the start of the next plan right now.

650-10-20-15 = 605

This is how much RpT we would have at the start of the next plan if we took all the Actions that cost dice that we haven't taken yet and without any new ones showing up or that -20 RpT we traded for Political Support being removed during reallocation like last time.

Uh... no.

That "divide by three" you did is funny math. It's incorrect. We don't get one third of the budget after reapportionment. We get a variable amount, either 20%, 25%, or 30%, most likely.

Now, you're right that the total budget (not counting exempt moon mining income) is 2145 RpT. So our share of that will be (rounding to the nearest five as we always do) 430, 535, or 645 RpT. Add +100 from the moon mines and that's 530, 635, or 745 RpT.

Then we subtract out all the existing -RpT costing actions we've already taken:
-15 Forgotten, -35 Grants, -5 Resettlement, -30 Reconstruction, -15 Arcologies Bureau, -15 Consumer Bureau, -30 Heavy Industry Bureau, -20 FMP promise.

That adds up to -165 RpT already.

That leaves us with a budget of ~~265 RpT, 370 RpT, or 480 RpT,~~ 365, 470, or 580 RpT depending on whether we take 20%, 25%, or 30%, respectively.

Having 200 or so Resources stored away when we start 2062Q1 will help, but it's still going to be tight, though not as tight as I thought because I used the wrong baseline numbers at one point before doing these edits

~~Note that the 20% option isn't even enough, by itself, for us to activate a full set of vein mining dice to start rebuilding, let alone to activate any dice whatsoever in any other category.~~

The 20% option gives us enough money to activate a full set of vein mining... with all of 85 R left over for everything else. Even with a sizeable 200 R nest egg, this is a problem.

...

I think we're going to need the 25% or 30% option, and even then we're probably leaving a bunch of dice fallow, and that's assuming we don't take any more of the bureau options because they are killing us. I don't regret the ones I've voted for, but it needs to stop until such time as we have a reasonable assurance of being able to pay for the damn things.

EternalStruggle · Jul 27, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
That adds up to -165 RpT already.

That leaves us with a budget of 265 RpT, 370 RpT, or 480 RpT, depending on whether we take 20%, 25%, or 30%, respectively.

Point of order, I'm not sure if this was intentional or not but this seems to be the budget including all the line items but not including the +100 Moon Mining

Dmol8 · Jul 27, 2022

@Simon_Jester When have we ever taken something other than the 30% of Budget option? Like we may take the 25% or 20% options down the line when they are chunky enough to get us enough Resources to use for all our Dice, but we are not there yet.

Simon_Jester · Jul 27, 2022

EternalStruggle said:
Point of order, I'm not sure if this was intentional or not but this seems to be the budget including all the line items but not including the +100 Moon Mining

My apologies, you are correct. I referred to the wrong set of three numbers.

The correct values are 365 RpT, 470 RpT, or 580 RpT. I wil edit accordingly.

Oledoms · Jul 27, 2022

We should at least try to reach for 3 ZA Factories.before the plan ends. If the NAT 100 provides either shorter progress, less power or faster deployment time. We have a buffer for a full year of ZA so we can concentrate on other projects lke Talons, ZOCOM or even the ORCA while allowing use to maximize RZ Border Offensive and Super Glacier Mining

Lightwhispers · Jul 27, 2022

Phht said:
Side note, anyone think that the tib spike in New York could've been avoided if we had installed an inhibitor in that BZ?

Also, I wonder if a BZ MARV hub would be a good spot to base those rapid response tendril harvester squadrons from. But we got lots of more important things to do than BZ hubs atm.

That foreman does.

(Blame the Nat 1 - if there had been an inhibitor, it would have been something else.)

Dmol8 said:
For starters Tiberium Vein Mines are an evolution of the prospecting action so I'm not sure they have 12 Stages to do, but besides that using your own math:

(Stage 2) 2506+5 = 2511/195 (Stage 3) 2316/190 (Stage 4) 2126/185 (Stage 5) 1939/180 (Stage 6) 1759/175 (Stage 7) 1584/170 (Stage 8) 1414/165 (Stage 9) 1249/160 (Stage 10) 1089/155 (Stage 11) 934/150 (Stage 12) 784/145 (Stage 13) 639/140 (Stage 14) 499/135 (Stage 15) 364/130 (Stage 16) 234/125 (Stage 17) 109/120 +15 Canon Omake to complete. (Stage 18) 0-4/115

That is -17 Capital Goods. And no I'm not making this up each Stage's completion requirement shrinks by 5:

You are assuming a limitless linear progression. Such assumptions are almost always incorrect. While the progress needed may go down somewhat, assuming that will continue indefinitely is foolish.

Simon_Jester said:
In all candor, do you want me to shuffle projects around, and if so, how? I'm listening; I respect you and you generally don't have utterly baseless or silly suggestions.

Mostly I want sparkle shields first, then see if we can squeeze another in before the second half of 2062... so, not really. I just want to put more dice into the ST developments, since we get a lot out of them.

Simon_Jester · Jul 27, 2022

Dmol8 said:
@Simon_Jester When have we ever taken something other than the 30% of Budget option? Like we may take the 25% or 20% options down the line when they are chunky enough to get us enough Resources to use for all our Dice, but we are not there yet.

There is widespread discussion of taking the 25% option this time, because of the positive impact on the rest of the government's budget.

A few idealistic and self-sacrificing souls have proposed taking the 20% option, though most of them seem to be assuming we can easily shake off many of the line item -RpT costs that make up that -165 RpT drain on whatever action we take. Since we have no assurance of being able to do so efficiently or easily, it is probably best if we do NOT plan around the ability to do so until we see what the reallocation post looks like.

Oledoms said:
We should at least try to reach for 3 ZA Factories.before the plan ends. If the NAT 100 provides either shorter progress, less power or faster deployment time. We have a buffer for a full year of ZA so we can concentrate on other projects lke Talons, ZOCOM or even the ORCA while allowing use to maximize RZ Border Offensive and Super Glacier Mining

I don't foresee being able to finish three Zone Armor factories without making more sacrifices than I care to. My target is two factories because that's what ZOCOM asked for. I'll just have to hope that's good enough for now, and continue work on the Zone Armor rollout in 2062.

Prime 2.0 · Jul 27, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
But don't try to guilt-trip me into doing more Military techs by fuming at me about the lack of them. Make your own plan.

I get the rest of what you're saying, I do.

But please don't assume bad faith like that when you've already acknowledged that I'm literally half incoherent with frustration. I did not write any of that out as some kind of ploy or guilt trip, I wrote that out because I feel that disrupters have chronically been treated as low priority and I can't understand why. By the timestamps, I edited it 14 minutes to soften the language precisely because I didn't want that paragraph to come off as "you are wrong and you should feel bad" as opposed to "I do not understand why this has historically been deprioritized and continues to be, I am completely lost now".

I'm typing this during lunch break just to express that. It's all I can do during the snippets of time I have in the morning and middle of the day, in advance of making a plan that, as you say, would prioritize the things I'd prefer.

I don't expect a plan would succeed if I make it while I'm completely lost about why everyone else is deprioritizing it, do you?

Yes, navy is proven effective. Yes, we've been behind on them - previously. But their confidence has been rising, and nod raids, especially on shipping, have just fallen off a cliff, while I think we can reasonably expect an increase in covert action that disruptors, which are a strike at the heart of nod's entire doctrine, are particularly beneficial for. And it begins to benefit us after a single die, because it is a (tech), not a (platform), the dice for completing the frigate yards won't do anything until all 300 progress are there, under the assumption that both are priorities a single die on the latter can be timeshifted with far less opportunity cost.

Or so it seems to me. And I respect you, a lot, so I must be missing something - even though I've tried and tried to wrap my head around it basically since I joined this quest and asked after it frequently.

And that's frustrating as hell. I'm sorry if it came off as complaining at and about you, but good grief I really just do not get it.

Dmol8 · Jul 27, 2022

Lightwhispers said:
You are assuming a limitless linear progression. Such assumptions are almost always incorrect. While the progress needed may go down somewhat, assuming that will continue indefinitely is foolish.

I'm assuming we don't get that many stages of it. As in I think we won't be able to do more than 10 Stages of Vein Mining before the action chain is spent and we get another Tiberium Mining action that replaces it.

Simon_Jester said:
There is widespread discussion of taking the 25% option this time, because of the positive impact on the rest of the government's budget.

A few idealistic and self-sacrificing souls have proposed taking the 20% option, though most of them seem to be assuming we can easily shake off many of the line item -RpT costs that make up that -165 RpT drain on whatever action we take. Since we have no assurance of being able to do so efficiently or easily, it is probably best if we do NOT plan around the ability to do so until we see what the reallocation post looks like.

No. Just no. If we have the 30% budget we can drag ourselves back to 900 Resources per Turn in the First year of the next plan. We can do Political Promises and Interdepartmental Favors after that to bleed off the excess Resources to other parts of the GDI government.

Simon_Jester · Jul 27, 2022

Prime 2.0 said:
I get the rest of what you're saying, I do.

But please don't assume bad faith like that when you've already acknowledged that I'm literally half incoherent with frustration. I did not write any of that out as some kind of ploy or guilt trip, I wrote that out because I feel that disrupters have chronically been treated as low priority and I can't understand why. By the timestamps, I edited it 14 minutes to soften the language precisely because I didn't want that paragraph to come off as "you are wrong and you should feel bad" as opposed to "I do not understand why this has historically been deprioritized and continues to be, I am completely lost now".

I'm typing this during lunch break just to express that. It's all I can do during the snippets of time I have in the morning and middle of the day, in advance of making a plan that, as you say, would prioritize the things I'd prefer.

I don't expect a plan would succeed if I make it while I'm completely lost about why everyone else is deprioritizing it, do you?

Prime, I understand where you're coming from here, but please bear in mind that we probably have weeks. You don't have to be in a position to write a plan now, but at a certain point I can't help you with your own dissatisfaction while still honoring my own priorities.

As to why the action has historically been deprioritized:

1) Because the last time we took one of these transformational techs that hacks at Nod's traditional advantages of stealth and deception, we suffered very specifically because we lacked the resources and commitment to deploy that specific project. This was before projects were overtly labeled "tech" and "platform," but the tech/platform dichotomy was very much in play. This was a tech, and we developed it, and we weren't ready to implement it in time, and so we lost the opportunity to exploit a critical advantage of "Nod doesn't know we can do this."

2) Because our forces have historically performed quite well in battle against Nod and do not seem to be significantly outclassed, despite the lack of these technologies. Thus, the idea of keeping them "in reserve" seems less of a pain and less of a sacrifice. It's hard to feel like you have somehow failed to do the obvious vital thing when you notice that your army is beating the enemy army like a drum.

3) Just because something is a "tech" does not mean there are great rewards from developing it but not deploying it. Ithillid has in fact explicitly taken care on this subject. SOME things are rewarding to develop but not deploy. Other things are not. We are specifically discouraged from trying to just mass-develop dozens of technologies without putting them into practice, because otherwise we could "bootstrap" ourselves to absurdly advanced technology very quickly even though we didn't have any of it on a large scale. So I think you may be overestimating the advantages of developing but not deploying these specific techs.

4) In my own case, if you look back and search through my old posts about Advanced ECCM and Stealth Disruptor, you will find repeated references to the idea of holding them in reserve for Karachi. Indeed, it was already my intention to deploy one technology, if not both, by that time! But I specifically anticipate this being a large project, and again, we have been bitten in the ass before by developing techs like this when we did not have the means available for a quick and full deployment. When I vote to develop stealth disruptors, it will be because I have every intention of going "whole hog," deploying the technology in 1-2 turns, and using it to great effect in a subsequent military campaign. Since Karachi is the only major offensive currently being considered against the Brotherhood, and my benchmark for "GO" time for Karachi these days is 2063Q4, that gives you a sense of the timeframe I'm working with.

Yes, navy is proven effective. Yes, we've been behind on them - previously. But their confidence has been rising...

But that is in large part because they have been required to concentrate entirely on commerce protection. Note that they were failing to fully protect our commerce until raiding "fell off a cliff," all at once, shortly after Kane ordered a stop to Regency War combat operations on Nod's part. We were getting hit pretty hard; it's only the degree of redundancy and organization built into our Logistics networks (read: a very large surplus buffer) that let us get away with it.

Karachi is going to stress-test our naval arrangements in a different way, because if the Bannerjees resist (and we must be prepared for that eventuality), we will need to engage in offensive naval operations, fighting our way into Nod-controlled waters, in range of Nod land-based aviation, and battering Nod's military installations in India and Pakistan to suppress them enough for us to get engineers and troops ashore around Karachi and work their way inland. This is the kind of thing the Navy has been aware of lately, and that is why they rate both the escort carrier and frigate yards as 'High Priority.'

Dmol8 said:
No. Just no. If we have the 30% budget we can drag ourselves back to 900 Resources per Turn in the First year of the next plan. We can do Political Promises and Interdepartmental Favors after that to bleed off the excess Resources to other parts of the GDI government.

Okay, well, that's how you feel. I'm telling you how some people I've heard feel. My own feelings don't really come into it.

Rakuhn · Jul 27, 2022

Do people have any thoughts on putting dice into income generators to prepare for a Q1 rollout (i.e. no chance of success in Q4)? I figure that orbital is probably a no go, given the lack of amenities on the moon right now. And MARVs are probably going to be put on the backburner until MARV Mk 2. But tib: vein mines, border offensives, red zone containment lines, etc.?

Normally I'd be against 'gaming' the system that way, but my conscience is satiated with having rolled out the tendrils early explicitly to help the rest of the initiative. That said, I do think that visceroids, venusian research, and at least one phase of LTP are probably more important. And we probably want to minimize time for public blowback on more controversial research (2 dice visceroids, 2 dice LTP), so I guess that wouldn't leave too many tib dice open unless we were willing to use free dice in the department.

Simon_Jester · Jul 27, 2022

Rakuhn said:
And MARVs are probably going to be put on the backburner until MARV Mk 2.

Not necessarily, but as outlined by me a few posts ago, in terms of raw Red Zone mitigation, we probably get better results just from brute-force launching the border zone offensives than by building MARV hubs for the moment. It's still worth considering a string of MARV hubs in certain regions, particularly around the Mediterranean, in 2064 or so in my opinion. But that's after the Military pressure of preparing for Karachi relaxes.

But tib: vein mines, border offensives, red zone containment lines, etc.?

I don't think it's worth it. The necessary upcoming vein mine push will be too large for doing one die or so of prep work to matter, and two or more dice would risk overflowing and finishing a phase. And most of the other "groundwork" ideas you discuss involve Red Zones and we're specifically avoiding those.

If I thought I could convince people to vote for it, I might try a plan with a single phase of Red Zone Border Offensive, but I don't think I can.

Lightwhispers · Jul 27, 2022

Rakuhn said:
Do people have any thoughts on putting dice into income generators to prepare for a Q1 rollout (i.e. no chance of success in Q4)? I figure that orbital is probably a no go, given the lack of amenities on the moon right now. And MARVs are probably going to be put on the backburner until MARV Mk 2. But tib: vein mines, border offensives, red zone containment lines, etc.?

Normally I'd be against 'gaming' the system that way, but my conscience is satiated with having rolled out the tendrils early explicitly to help the rest of the initiative. That said, I do think that visceroids, venusian research, and at least one phase of LTP are probably more important. And we probably want to minimize time for public blowback on more controversial research (2 dice visceroids, 2 dice LTP), so I guess that wouldn't leave too many tib dice open unless we were willing to use free dice in the department.

Given that we 1-turn completed a Zone armor factory, I think it will probably be okay to start RZ Border Offensives next turn, so long as we keep working on ZA factories. Because ZOCOM, from my interpretation of what we're hearing, can cover us starting on RZ operations with that caveat.

Prime 2.0 · Jul 27, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
1) Because the last time we took one of these transformational techs that hacks at Nod's traditional advantages of stealth and deception, we suffered very specifically because we lacked the resources and commitment to deploy that specific project. This was before projects were overtly labeled "tech" and "platform," but the tech/platform dichotomy was very much in play. This was a tech, and we developed it, and we weren't ready to implement it in time, and so we lost the opportunity to exploit a critical advantage of "Nod doesn't know we can do this."

2) Because our forces have historically performed quite well in battle against Nod and do not seem to be significantly outclassed, despite the lack of these technologies. Thus, the idea of keeping them "in reserve" seems less of a pain and less of a sacrifice. It's hard to feel like you have somehow failed to do the obvious vital thing when you notice that your army is beating the enemy army like a drum.

3) Just because something is a "tech" does not mean there are great rewards from developing it but not deploying it. Ithillid has in fact explicitly taken care on this subject. SOME things are rewarding to develop but not deploy. Other things are not. We are specifically discouraged from trying to just mass-develop dozens of technologies without putting them into practice, because otherwise we could "bootstrap" ourselves to absurdly advanced technology very quickly even though we didn't have any of it on a large scale. So I think you may be overestimating the advantages of developing but not deploying these specific techs.

4) In my own case, if you look back and search through my old posts about Advanced ECCM and Stealth Disruptor, you will find repeated references to the idea of holding them in reserve for Karachi. Indeed, it was already my intention to deploy one technology, if not both, by that time! But I specifically anticipate this being a large project, and again, we have been bitten in the ass before by developing techs like this when we did not have the means available for a quick and full deployment. When I vote to develop stealth disruptors, it will be because I have every intention of going "whole hog," deploying the technology in 1-2 turns, and using it to great effect in a subsequent military campaign. Since Karachi is the only major offensive currently being considered against the Brotherhood, and my benchmark for "GO" time for Karachi these days is 2063Q4, that gives you a sense of the timeframe I'm working with.

In order, 1 is addressed by pointing out that the failure was not due to develop yet not deploy, but due to partial deployment, and then not enabling the military's plans that were stated after said deployment started.

I feel 2 is addressed by pointing out that infiltration and exfiltration of forces using stealth has been one of the largest sources of nod getting licks in on us, and that Kane yanking the leash leaves such actions as one of, if not the main method of nod's proactive military engagement. Likewise, the threat of strategic action is exacerbated by their stealth technology, and disruptors have a well deserved place in any defensive doctrine against that.

On 3 - Ithillid has repeated stated (mostly on discord, granted) that it is an entirely sensible strategy to just literally take a moment to spam every single technology project out before resuming the rest of our business. Sensor technology have developed considerably since their initial development, and it is characterized as a race - one that disruptors haven't even started yet. But there is one impact of having the tech developed that very much stands above the rest:

4 - We have already committed to developing the Governor A, and the primary tactical role of disruptors is to rule out or confirm sensor detections at lower cost than firing actual weapons at it - and this is incredibly important when the things being fired at are stealth bombers and munitions and the Gov A design's entire point is to reorient towards a greater emphasis on Laser PD. They can be designed WITH this technology that massively frees up PD capacity in mind, or without it. There is no such thing as saving the disruptors for right before karachi, the idea that they can be just bolted on in a hurry after most of the rest of our build-up is pure guesswork, as is any other characteristic of its deployment. We cannot effectively plan around how to use it until the research is done, and I reiterate that we were not punished for developing sensors early, we were punished for partially deploying it early. If we had never made that first factory the secret getting out would not have happened.

The idea that underlying research and feasibility studies need to be saved for the right time has been discredited for a while now. We do not know what the requirements to apply the technology will be until we actually research it, and planning around how we want to save applying it for the right time is putting the cart before the horse, AND it's micromanaging the military whose actual job it is to decide if that's worth it or not.

I fundamentally dispute your prior about why sensors went wrong. Whole-sale.

Esprit · Jul 27, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
Ah. That would explain it, yes. A MARV in Hawaii would be fairly useless, unless GDI has worked out how to equip a MARV with water wings.

Actually, something similar may be on the docket in the near-ish term if we manage to push down the repulsor tree. MARVs hovering from island to island is a very amusing image.

Phht · Jul 27, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
...As in, as a waypoint for travel through the Strait of Gibraltar and out into the eastern Med? Arguably, though most of the tiberium is actually being shipped south to Medina-Jeddah, I think. The trick is that MARV hub overflow isn't always symmetrical. Either of the two RZ-3 hubs will overflow first into the other RZ-3 hub, then into Tripoli... But the Tripoli RZ-1S hub overflows into the YZ-13N Algiers hub, as discussed.

I'm reluctant to build Yellow Zone MARV hubs because right now that might feel like more land grabs to the Nod warlords living in those areas, and we already know said Nod warlords juuuust might go nuclear in that case. So I'd rather start over at the RZ-3 hub sites and work my way east, giving a clear signal that our intentions are against Tiberium, not against Nod.

I was thinking more for travel of construction material, though I dunno if I want to run tiberium shipments that far through RZ to ship down to Jeddah, which is already taking Tiberium from both of the Sinai ops and also the Egypt and Eritrea harvesting/glacier mining ops at a minimum. Possibly also some Arabian peninsula harvesting ops. Meanwhile, we did just majorly expand our processing plants in general and if a convoy of tiberium haulers picks up or drops off a few more ships while going past Tripoli....

Though I hope Malta can get reclaimed while we're building Tripoli/Beirut/Istanbul. It's well placed for hydrofoil/Ox maritime patrol operations and locking down access to the eastern Med from the western Med while still covering Tripoli. I don't know what Nod raiding activity there is in the Med, but there is two chunks of YZ in Nod hands on the coasts, so there's probably some. And it'll eventually kick back up again.

Esprit said:
Actually, something similar may be on the docket in the near-ish term if we manage to push down the repulsor tree. MARVs hovering from island to island is a very amusing image.

More amusing image: Stealth Hover MARVs.

Giving nightmares to Nod forces since the 2060s.

Gnarker · Jul 27, 2022

Simon_Jester said:
More usefully placed inhibitors mean more MARV hubs. That's doable. One obvious target is the RZ-8, the Australian Red Zone, which we now have a pretty firm grip on.

For anyone interested in MARVs, I'm going to quote myself:

Gnarker said:
Rather offtopic, but I was looking at the map and did some thinking on where we should focus future abatement efforts. Note that all of these are definite long-term projects, that in some cases may well take a decade or more to yield results. Still, if anyone plans to build MARV hubs or Tib Inhibitors in the future, maybe keep the following in mind.

Note:
I mostly ignored any projects in enemy territory, on the assumption that doing major construction projects there simply won't work. Exceptions are YZ1 West/Mandvi, which assumes that we'll be well into Karachi at that point and thus hold the ground, and YZ13 North/Algiers, which while technically enemy territory is well inside the RZ by now, and thus should be mostly uncontested.
Also, reclamator hubs open up Inhibitors and (iirc) glacier mines in the same locations.

Offensive operations project GDI power into Nod territory, Defensive projects secure our own assets (sealanes especially, I didn't bother listing anything that merely secures the local area), and Logistics projects open up new transport routes.

NA Transcontinental (Logistics)
[ ] Tiberium Inhibitor Deployment
-[ ] Red Zone 7 (Progress 0/120: 30 resources per die) (+2 Red Zone Abatement) (2 Political Support)
[ ] Reclamator Hubs
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 9 (Progress 0/335) (Guaymas) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)

Suez Canal (Logistics/Defensive)
The Suez' value as a global transport route is significantly diminshed by having to take wide detours around India and SE Asia. It's still significant, providing a shortcut between the Arab peninsula, and Europe and the NA East Coast, running entirely through waters that are very easy to secure against hostile ships - though not against attacks from the western bank of the Red Sea, or the coasts of the Western Med. Might also serve as Maskirovka for Karachi.
[ ] Reclamator Hubs
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 1 South (Progress 0/335) (Tripoli) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT) (+1 Energy)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 3 South (Progress 0/335) (Beirut) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT) (+1 Energy)

Western Med (Offensive/Defensive)
Cuts off the connection between the European and the West African YZs. Also secures the sealanes if the Suez is reopened
[ ] Reclamator Hubs
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 13 North (Progress 0/335) (Algiers) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)

Technically located in a red zone by now, but still shallow enough to let us flank into Nod rearlines.

East Africa (Defensive)
Provides ports to defend the sealanes off the east african coast against Bintang.
[ ] Reclamator Hubs
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 16 (Progress 0/335) (Berbera) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 2 South (Progress 0/335) (Dar Es Salaam) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT) (+1 Energy)

Karachi Invasion (Offensive/Logistics)
Operations that support the invasion of Pakistan, Karachi Planned City, and the logistics route into BZ 18.
[ ] Reclamator Hubs
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 1 West (Progress 0/335) (Mandvi) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)

Forward defense of Karachi, only feasible after we already hold sizeable territory
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 4 (Progress 0/335) (Abu Dhabi) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)

Possible alternative route to Karachi into BZ18, assuming that MARVs can cross the strait of Hormuz
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 18 (Progress 0/335) (Lhasa) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)

Panama Canal (Logistics)
[ ] Tiberium Inhibitor Deployment
-[ ] Yellow Zone 11 (Progress 0/130: 30 resources per die) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement)

West Africa (Defensive)
Provides ports to defend the sealanes off the west african coast against Stahl.
[ ] Reclamator Hubs
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 2 North (Progress 0/335) (Congo River) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT) (+1 Energy)

Australia (Offensive)
[ ] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 5)
A further wave of construction will finalize securing the routes to the Australian Red Zone, and ensure improved supply to GDI's various fronts. At this point however, further construction of rail networks is likely to see increasingly small improvements in the overall supply network, while new city centers are the largest growing strain.
(Progress 39/325: 15 resources per die) (+4 Logistics)
North:

Provides forward airbases to strike at Bintang's home area.
[ ] Reclamator Hubs
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 8 North (Progress 0/335) (Wyndham) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT) (+1 Energy)
South:

Provides an overland invasion corridor into east Australia, to deny ports to Bintang
[ ] Reclamator Hubs
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 7 (Progress 0/335) (Adelaide) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 8 South (Progress 0/335) (Eucla) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT) (+1 Energy)

TLDR: I broadly agree with Simon's analysis, but I'd also like to draw your attention to the hubs of YZ16 (Horn of Africa) and RZ2 South (East African coast), which would excavate valuable ports and airbases to secure the sealanes to the middle east, and anchor Karachi. And the sooner we build them, the more time they have to work.

Thoug it'd also be very convenient if we could build hubs in Salt Lake City (RZ7 West or YZ9 North) to support the Transcontinental from the other direction, western Tibet (BZ18 West) to mine central asia and more directly support Karachi than the one at Lhasa (current BZ18/new BZ18 East) would, and North-East Australia (YZ7 North or RZ8 East), as a more secure alternative/supplement to the one at Darwin (RZ8 North), which is uncomfortably exposed to Bintang's stomping grounds.
Does anyone know if new MARV hub locations is something @Ithillid would be open to?

Simon_Jester said:
There is widespread discussion of taking the 25% option this time, because of the positive impact on the rest of the government's budget.

A few idealistic and self-sacrificing souls have proposed taking the 20% option, though most of them seem to be assuming we can easily shake off many of the line item -RpT costs that make up that -165 RpT drain on whatever action we take. Since we have no assurance of being able to do so efficiently or easily, it is probably best if we do NOT plan around the ability to do so until we see what the reallocation post looks like.

Maybe there's an option to pick 30%, and then promise to transfer further funds in yearly increments like we did for the spooks?

Esprit said:
Actually, something similar may be on the docket in the near-ish term if we manage to push down the repulsor tree. MARVs hovering from island to island is a very amusing image.

Or across the Strait of Hormuz to support Karachi.

Phht said:
I was thinking more for travel of construction material, though I dunno if I want to run tiberium shipments that far through RZ to ship down to Jeddah, which is already taking Tiberium from both of the Sinai ops and also the Egypt and Eritrea harvesting/glacier mining ops at a minimum. Possibly also some Arabian peninsula harvesting ops. Meanwhile, we did just majorly expand our processing plants in general and if a convoy of tiberium haulers picks up or drops off a few more ships while going past Tripoli....

We're somewhat well-situated to construct a tiberium port at the Adriatic and then ship north through the Eastern Europe GZ, if I don't miss my guess.

Derpmind · Jul 27, 2022

Lightwhispers said:
One correction: we're down to 4 Heavy Industry dice.

Thank you for the correction.

Simon_Jester said:
I'm pretty sure you're mistaken about vein mine stage costs decreasing over time.

I could be wrong, but I think the stage cost dropped to 195 points because of something unrelated; I forget exactly what.

Don't get me wrong, it'd be very convenient if each stage of vein mining was five points cheaper than the last, mind you, like how moon mines work... In any case, if you're right, it makes doing a shitload of vein mining easier, not harder.

If you don't remember something, it's best to go back and check. A thread search for "Vein Mines (Stage 2)" (with quotation marks) by Ithillid turned up the first turn post after we completed Vein Mines Stage 1:

Ithillid said:
[ ] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2) (Updated)
With the concept proven, vein mines are a fairly expensive, but functional way of attacking underground Tiberium, and providing for a long term abatement strategy, while also not stressing military deployments. While they do have their problems, these are of limited import compared to their advantages.
(Progress 20/195: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [20-30]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods)

It's already at 195 progress required. Going to the Results threadmark immediately prior:

Ithillid said:
[ ] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 1)
With major development of the prospecting expeditions having discovered vast amounts of Tiberium under the surface, fairly conventional underground mines have become a significant proposal. While they will require additional robotic support, especially because it is politically nonviable to have large scale human losses, these will be expensive, but also a major source of income without having to expose GDI assets to the Brotherhood of NOD.
(Progress 205/200: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [20-30]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods)

This is far from the first attempt at underground mining of Tiberium. That particular dubious honor goes to the North Koreans, who attempted to do a covert spread of Tiberium in a number of played out mines and conduct harvesting operations with political prisoners before the GDI takeover in 2005. The results were, to say the least, poor. Casualties were high, with significant losses due to multiple cave ins. Similar results occurred in the coal countries of West Virginia and North Carolina, where attempts at converting coal into Tiberium faced both local resistance to conversion, and significant losses due to Tiberium compromising the supports to the mine. Ever since that point, surface harvesting has been the default, with little attention paid to the underground.
The first wave of Tiberium Vein mines have been completed. Each is fundamentally simple. A cliff face or mountainside is the recipient of a pair of tunnels. The tunnel turns into a wide gentle spiral, digging down towards a Tiberium vein. At some point short of the vein, the two tunnels, reinforced along their length and paved through, join, and the mine face is formed. A series of blasting charges along the mine face open the vein. At that point, no more human examination is done, and all further operations are conducted by machines. The vein is attacked by a trio of machines. A blaster, a harvester, and a set of carriers. The blaster is little more than a fairly low powered sonic projector, designed to shatter the Tiberium, and just the Tiberium out of the rockface. Then it is swept up by the Harvester, and loaded into a collector. This is then hauled up one of the two tunnels and to the waiting refinery, while another collector takes its place.
However, there are also typically a series of smaller veins projecting off at various angles, and this is where the vast majority of the drones do their work. Smaller units with a paired drill and small scale sonic projector attack these as the main vein twists and curves away, termites gnawing at roots, digging out the green rock that is eating the planet.

[ ] Tiberium Processing Plants (Stage 1)
While initially a low priority, as GDI's economy has been rebuilt, a new wave of Tiberium processing plants is soon to be required, as the Initiative runs into the limits of its surviving processing capabilities. These plants will carry out the recently discovered Hewlett-Gardener process providing a near endless flow of Tiberium being converted to everything from steel girders to rare earth metals, and the beating heart of the industrial economy. A single wave of these plants will substantially increase GDI's processing capability, and therefore the limits of its Tiberium economy.
(Progress 220/200: 30 resources per die) (+600 processing potential) (-4 Energy, -2 Logistics)

The standard Tiberium Processing plant design from before the war was a relatively small affair, capable of handling just a few thousand tons of raw tiberium. Highly distributed, this made them (despite their function as a lynchpin of the Initiative economy) a relatively unappealing target for the Brotherhood of Nod. During the war, only a relatively small number were outright destroyed, and many were simply damaged, with between a third and a half of processing capacity taken offline permanently. However, since the war, GDI has relied much more heavily on a pair of planned cities, with the two providing nearly half of total processing capacity, and creating gaping weak points for Brotherhood to exploit. In fact, planned cities and regional complexes have provided all of the expansion of processing capacity since the war up to this point.
These new series plants are approximately the same size as the old models, just significantly more efficient. The new Hewlett-Gardener process, as used in Chicago and Jeddah, has been deployed to more continents, ensuring a much more stable supply of the stable transuranic materials that seem to be such a key component of many scrin and brotherhood technologies. The plants are already working at full capacity, as many of the older plants have stopped getting deliveries, due to the increases in efficiency. With the current conditions not particularly good for expansions in Tiberium mining, there are already proposals for refits, using the generous space in the refining capacity to begin phasing out old technology once and for all.

The only Tiberium projects that turn were the Vein Mines and a round of Processing Plants. There was no other project that could have given the discount to Vein Mines except itself. From such it's only logical that the Vein Mines operate similarly to the Lunar Mines: Each complete Stage discounts the next by a set amount. We can reasonably guess that at some point the discounts stop or the project changes, but that's likely to be many Stages away.

Simon_Jester said:
1) Because the last time we took one of these transformational techs that hacks at Nod's traditional advantages of stealth and deception, we suffered very specifically because we lacked the resources and commitment to deploy that specific project. This was before projects were overtly labeled "tech" and "platform," but the tech/platform dichotomy was very much in play. This was a tech, and we developed it, and we weren't ready to implement it in time, and so we lost the opportunity to exploit a critical advantage of "Nod doesn't know we can do this."

We suffered because we rolled a natural 100 on the project, and then failed to capitalize on the advantage that natural 100 gave us. This is similar to how we rolled a natural 100 on intel to find out about the Varyags, which we again were too slow to deploy the Aurora Strike Bombers for. The lesson here isn't "don't do stealth techs until we're ready to deploy them." It's to not ignore the narrative or natural 100s when they say we should do something quickly.

The other half of this issue is solved by the (Platform) tag, which indicates projects that are time-limited for their obsolesce. And Advanced ECCM Development is explicitly a (Tech) project.

Simon_Jester · Jul 27, 2022

Lightwhispers said:
Given that we 1-turn completed a Zone armor factory, I think it will probably be okay to start RZ Border Offensives next turn, so long as we keep working on ZA factories. Because ZOCOM, from my interpretation of what we're hearing, can cover us starting on RZ operations with that caveat.

Suffice to say that I'm very conservative about reasoning of the form "surely, ZOCOM would be okay with this" until ZOCOM says so themselves, because of a few steps in the process where I got a bit shouted at in the past.

...

...

...

[reads further and thinks about other stuff than just the one thing Lightwhispers said]

[opens mouth]

[feels overwhelmed]

[just shuts down for a while]

Theunderbolt · Jul 27, 2022

> Seo has a quarter left with most of the plan goals done.

Is it time for questionable science fellas?

Phht · Jul 27, 2022

Gnarker said:
We're somewhat well-situated to construct a tiberium port at the Adriatic and then ship north through the Eastern Europe GZ, if I don't miss my guess.

That's quite a bit of mountainous RZ to carve through for that, I think, compared to just shipping it past Gibraltar to the West Africa and European BZs. Not necessarily saying it's not feasible, but it might be more costly than glancing at the map might indicate.

For instance, there's lots of plains between Monfalcone in the east and Venice in the west, and Ravenna south of Venice. But to the north? That's the Alps. Now, we probably could carve a path west and connect to the Genoa mining operation... but what's the point of that from a transporting tiberium perspective? Alternately, we could put a port on the Croatian coast, carve a path up to the Zagreb area, then head NE into former Hungary before turning north to go to Vienna. At that point, it should be fairly close to or in a GZ.

But is building and maintaining that better than just running shipping through Gibraltar to Africa and Europe?

Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

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The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web

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